By Cosmata Lindie
THE drum had belonged to my grandfather. Now it was mine. I had not asked for it, yet here it was, delivered into my hands late one afternoon, in the middle of an otherwise ordinary week.
I had not been expecting anything and stood puzzled for a minute or two, staring at the package the deliveryman had left.
There was no mistaking who it was for—my name, written in a clear and careful script, was lettered in bold, black ink on one side of the box. I opened it. Inside, carefully wrapped in a layer of heavy brown paper and an old shawl, was my late grandfather’s drum.

When Grandfather died, almost a year ago, there had been no sign of the drum among his things.
After the funeral, my mother and her siblings divided up Grandfather’s ninety-seven long years of frugal living amongst themselves. A rather easy task since his material possessions consisted of only the bare necessities, along with a few items of deep sentimental value.
But his most prized possession—the drum he had inherited from his father, and his father before him—was nowhere to be found.
In the little backwater where my mother was born, traditions hold strong. Of these traditions, community events known as ‘Gatherings’ were the strongest.
Deaths, weddings, anniversaries, christenings, and any other significant event were occasions for gatherings, and Grandfather, the Man with the Talking Drum, was a legend in the county during his lifetime. Where drumming invoked the spirits of dead ancestors and thrilled the souls of the living, he was always at the forefront.
These were celebrations of togetherness and community strength, and drumming and dancing were central to the spirit of these gatherings. Hands clapping, feet stomping, bodies swaying; everyone chanting and moving in perfect time to the rhythm of the drums.
Everyone, except me. Though born of them, that wonderful sense of rhythm that came as naturally to my people as breathing had missed me completely.
We visited Grandfather every year and participated in gatherings during these visits. There I witnessed the magic of Grandfather’s hands on the drum, felt the beat in my soul as those hands struck, lightly or firmly, on the tightly stretched skin.
But matching that feeling with movement was impossible for me. Though I tried to fall into the rhythm and moves of the dancers around me, I always fell out of time.
I was nine when I stopped trying altogether.
We were visiting during the Gathering of the Harvest, a celebration at the end of the reaping season.
Warm golden light filled an open communal space, where feasting tables laden with the bounty of the community were placed.
Grandfather sat on a carved wooden stool, the drum between his knees, his hands moving in a blur of powerful sound as he led the other drummers in an electrifying session. His mahogany skin gleamed under a sheen of sweat and smoke from his cigarette curled into the afternoon light.
I was bouncing on my feet and clapping my hands, oblivious to everything but the energy of the moment and the thrumming of the drums, when the sounds of muffled merriment pulled me rudely back into the present. A group of children about my age were gathered nearby.
“Ty can’t even clap in time,” said Cousin Casper, doubling over with laughter—as if my uncoordinated dance was the funniest thing he had ever seen.
I froze with embarrassment, feet stilled, hands falling to my sides.
There was no way Grandfather could have heard the remark over the sound of the drums, but our eyes met as I looked up in mortification.
I felt a slight shift in the tempo, and his eyes continued to hold mine as he played. But I turned and slinked away, hugging my shame and sudden feeling of unbelonging close to my chest.
He sought me out later that evening, finding me in the corner where I had hidden myself.
“Never,” he said, as seriously as if imparting the wisdom of a great sage to me, his hard, lean fingers gripping my bowed shoulders, “ever let anyone shame you into silence, Tyrone.”
But I kept to the sidelines after that. As much as I enjoyed these gatherings, I was done with being made a laughingstock. If Grandfather did notice, he never commented on it again.
When, many years later, he passed peacefully away, it felt like that strong and dependable rope that had guided us silently but surely through the years had finally been cut.
As we sorted through his belongings, we all wondered what had happened to the drum. But searches and enquiries turned up nothing.
The drum had vanished without a trace. It had not been passed on to one of his sons, as had been expected.
Had he given away this legendary instrument before he died? While we found that hard to believe, with no better explanation, we finally agreed that it must have been the case.
My mother and I had returned to our own home, thinking often of Grandfather, though much less about his drum, or its whereabouts.
Then, many months later, came a knock on the door. “Package for one Tyrone,” said the deliveryman. I signed for the box, unwrapped it, and there was Grandfather’s drum. The wooden shell was carved from a single trunk, and carefully knotted ropes held the skin tightly in place.
I was still staring at it when my mother came through the door.
“Where’d that come from?” she asked in surprise when she saw it standing in the middle of the dining room table.
“Special delivery,” I said.
She went perfectly still for a moment, then, “Dad always did have a strange sense of humour,” she said.
Morbid, I thought, but didn’t reply.
She turned it around, slim fingers running fondly over the polished shell, thwacking lightly on the skin.
“Uncle J always thought it was going to be his,” she remarked. “This drum, as you know, has been in our family for generations, handed down from father to son.” Uncle J was her eldest brother and my favourite uncle. “We all thought so too.”
“Well, he shall have it then,” I said with relief. “It came here by mistake!”
Depriving Uncle J of what was rightfully his was something I did not want to do at all. Besides, I knew he could play it. No one would have called him a master drummer, but he had good rhythm and had drummed at gatherings with his father many times in the past.
“Dad never made mistakes,” she said firmly. “If he had wanted Japheth to have the drum, he would have given it to him.” When my mother called you by your full name, she meant business.
“But he couldn’t have sent it to me,” I argued. “He’s been dead for nearly a year, and now it shows up.”
“We are in no position to question his actions without knowing his motives,” she said.
“And no way of ever finding out now,” I muttered.
“We may, in due time. Your grandfather never did anything halfway, Ty. He always planned in advance.”
“Are you saying he timed it to arrive here now, in this present time? Long after he was gone? For argument’s sake, Mom, let’s say he did—it’s completely wasted on me. I don’t have any rhythm. Everyone knows that.”
“That’s beside the point,” she said serenely, “and if Dad didn’t send it, who else did?”
I could think of many possibilities, but knew it was pointless to argue any further with her.
I’ve always been told that I look like my mother, and I take that as a compliment. She is beautiful, short and small-boned, with skin the colour of warm honey. I am only a little taller, and while I might look like her on the outside, our similarities ended there. We did not think alike, and I had not inherited her ability to look past logic and override obstacles as if they didn’t exist.
Perhaps my tendency to avoid facing up to my fears, and my innate lack of rhythm, stemmed from my father, who had drifted into town and into my mother’s life when she was twenty. He had enchanted her with his smooth words and extraordinary beauty, and taken her away with him when he left.
Deciding later that the responsibilities of fatherhood were too much for him, he had drifted just as easily out of our lives when I was still very young, leaving me with only a memory of what he looked like. I am certain, though, that I had never seen him dance.
I set the drum in a corner. Looked at it often, but, except for a few half-hearted taps, I could not work up the courage to play on it. “After all,” my inner critic whispered in Cousin Casper’s mocking voice, “you can’t even clap in time.”
Whoever had sent me the drum probably did so as a family joke. If that was the case, I did not find it funny.
“We’re gathering at the old place to keep up Dad’s one year,” my mother said, “I’ve already booked tickets for the flight.”
A gathering on a person’s first death anniversary was an important rite of passage.
“I think, Tyrone,” she continued, “that you should bring the drum along.”
My enthusiasm meter registered a plunge. Was my mother serious? How could I roll up to a gathering commemorating the death anniversary of Grandfather, with his drum in tow? The same drum that my mother and I had claimed ignorance of its whereabouts a full year ago.
“Mom, there are other drums in the town. Good drums too, drums with great sound, Mom. No need to lug this one all the way back there.”
But she was serious and insistent. Eventually, I agreed. Now I contemplated the gathering with a sense of dread, then felt a little better when I remembered that this was also an opportunity to find out who had sent the drum to me in the first place and return it to the rightful owner.
There are certain places where time seems to move differently from others. The community of Red Hills was such a place. Here, time moved visibly more slowly. It meandered, and now and then seemed to pause entirely. It was a place of rich colour, red earth and green fields. The people had a glow to them, and even the colour of the light was different to the light in other places.
Grandfather’s house was on the edge of the town, surrounded by the same fields his family had ploughed and planted from time immemorial. The family member who now lived there welcomed us with good spirit, and Grandfather’s old home was again, for a little while, the gathering place of the family.
I observed each familiar face closely as we greeted each other. If one of them had secretly sent me the drum, I thought, I would soon find out who it was.
But they all seemed as surprised to see me with Grandfather’s drum as I had been the day it was delivered. If the person who had sent it was there, they were hiding it well.
I watched Cousin Casper more closely than anyone else, but his face was innocent and smooth as an egg.
I cornered Uncle J the day after we arrived.
“Tyrone, my nephew,” he said, “you’ve grown much in the last year.”
I wasn’t sure if he was pulling my leg or needed glasses. I’ve been the same height since I was thirteen.
“Uncle,” I blurted out, needing to get it off my chest. “We all know Grandfather’s drum was supposed to be yours. So, we’ve brought it back for you.”
“Did you, now?” His deep brown eyes studied me closely. “You could have said that since yesterday, with everyone around. But let’s have a look at it now, son.”
We went to the side table where I had placed it since arriving. Uncle J ran his hands over it, just like Mom had done that afternoon in our kitchen.
“This drum has been in our family forever, Ty. But it’s always handed down from a father to his son. That’s the way it is done. My father did not give it to me, and the drum is not mine to claim.”
I could feel his disappointment, but there was no animosity from him towards me.
We had set up a big white tent at one end of the field, where trestle tables for the feast were set.
We observed all the rites and had poured a libation onto the red earth mound of Grandfather’s grave. Later in the evening, we all gathered under the big tent, where food was plentiful, and drinks flowed without ceasing.
Then, in the middle of the feast, my uncle stood up on a chair and addressed the gathering.
“Friends and family. We are all here today to observe the anniversary of my father’s passing one year ago. It has been a good day, my friends, a meaningful day, but as the evening draws to a close, it is missing something important. It is missing the beat of a drum. Yes, we have drums in this town and drummers to play them, and they did. But there is one drum that we all need to hear now.”
He turned and looked me straight in the eye. “Bring out the drum and let’s make this a proper soirée!”
In the sudden silence, I felt my heart plummet. With the eyes of the gathering on me, I brought out the drum and set it down carefully. I looked around… Was no one going to come forward?
My heart had recovered from its earlier faint and was thumping hard in my chest. Surely, someone in this large gathering would volunteer. No one did, and every eye I met looked away. All except my mother’s. She smiled confidently at me. “Go on, son,” she said, “You can do it.”
“Not Tyrone,” groaned a voice. It was Casper—tall and fine-looking now, but still a bully inside. “He can’t even snap his fingers in time.”
Maybe it was that insult from my cousin, spoken like that in the middle of the gathering for everyone to hear, that spurred me forward.
“Never, ever let anyone shame you into silence,” Grandfather had said a long time ago.
Well, they were going to hear me, whether they liked it or not. Just because I couldn’t play didn’t mean I shouldn’t play.
I squared my shoulders and pulled up a chair. My breathing quieted as my heartbeat settled down to a measured thump. Setting the drum between my knees, the way I had seen Grandfather do, I swept my eyes across the gathering and heard a few sniggers from somewhere in the crowd.
My eyes narrowed as I gritted my teeth and brought my palm down hard on the goatskin.
And a sound like thunder rolled through the tent. Startled by my audacity, I looked up. Strange, but no one else seemed to have heard it. They were all still watching me, quietly and curiously now.
I tapped more gently with my fingers on the skin, and the sounds came out. Not timid, not random, not out of time—but powerful and rhythmic.
If I was shocked at myself, the gathering was even more shocked. They were staring at me. A sea of wide eyes and open mouths surrounding me.
Then I saw hands on the drum. Not my own hands, but another pair—pale grey and ghostly hands. Long, knotted fingers that I recognised instantly were moving along with mine. Or rather, mine were moving along with them.
They were my grandfather’s hands.
“Ty’s been fooling us all this time!” a voice shouted. “The man got riddim!”
And just like that, they were moving, stomping, swaying, clapping their hands, dancing as I drummed.
As my mother passed by, caught up in the beat, she met my eye with a grin and a wink that said, “I told you so!” Laughter came pouring out of me.
I looked down at the hands on the drum, following their lead, feeling the beat flow out of them and into my own hands, then into the drum and out again.
Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, they were gone. I looked up again and saw the old spirit wending his way through the gathering, rocking in time as he went, dancing away into the hereafter.
I don’t know if anyone else in that crowd saw him as I did, but his presence was there, in every beat of that drum. I wanted to call out to him, ask him to stay a little longer. But my heart was filled, and it was not my place to tie him any longer to this world, so I said nothing as I watched him go.
He turned and waved, then walked out from under the tent, his spirit light leaving a faint glowing trail as he disappeared into the gloom of the field beyond. Far away, my eyes followed him, and I saw him rise, like a star, into the pale evening sky.
But my hands continued to play, finding the rhythm of the drum on their own. Relishing in the beat, and my grandfather’s final gift to me.
End